Did a missionary found dead in the Presbyterian House with a pipe in his hand really die of an opium overdose? So say the police.

But Ashleigh Booker-Hyde and his impetutous sister Melisande don’t believe it. So they call in former Detective Inspector Nat Frayne, now a private inquiry agent since his dismissal from the London Met, to investigate.

But Frayne’s typically hard-handed methods land all three of them in a violent war against an opium smuggling ring ready to back up its ambitions with a bevy of Chinese assassins.

In this Victorian thriller, all three of the trio will be put very much on their mettle.